Massage clients who get more sleep could experience reduced pain sensitivity to a degree more powerful than that achieved from taking prescription drugs.
Researchers looked at the differences in sensitivity to pain, as well as daily alertness in a group of 18 healthy, pain-free, sleepy volunteers.
They were randomly assigned to four nights of either maintaining their habitual sleep time or extending their sleep time by spending 10 hours in bed per night, according to a press release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Objective daytime sleepiness was measured using the multiple sleep latency test, and pain sensitivity was assessed using a radiant heat stimulus.
Results show that the extended sleep group slept 1.8 hours more per night than the habitual sleep group, the press release noted. This nightly increase in sleep time during the four experimental nights was correlated with increased daytime alertness, which was associated with less pain sensitivity.
In the extended sleep group, the length of time before participants removed their finger from a radiant heat source increased by 25 percent, reflecting a reduction in pain sensitivity. The authors report that the magnitude of this increase in finger withdrawal latency is greater than the effect found in a previous study of 60 mg of codeine.
“Our results suggest the importance of adequate sleep in various chronic pain conditions or in preparation for elective surgical procedures,” said Timothy Roehrs, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and lead author. “We were surprised by the magnitude of the reduction in pain sensitivity, when compared to the reduction produced by taking codeine.”
The study appears in the December issue of the journal SLEEP.
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